A typical enterprise may have a large number of computers distributed over wide geographic areas spanning across different cities or countries. The enterprise may provide support services and employ support personnel to handle computer related problems experienced by users and their computers. Support services may include, for example, providing several employees at each office location to assist with technical issues, especially hardware related where hands-on assistance is often required. Other personnel may be responsible for handling telephone technical support.
However, providing support services and personnel to handle computer problems during all periods may be costly and ineffective. For example, an enterprise may find it too costly to provide support personnel during non-working business hours. A user who encounters a computer problem during non-working business hours may have to wait until normal business hours to have the problem resolved. As a result, user productivity may be negatively impacted if many users encounter the same problem and have to wait until support personnel attend to the problem.